Not neighborly: ECCL cries foul as Bonita Council pushes for annexation

Bonita Springs City Council to vote on annexation of two Estero communities

LAURA GATES

4:00 AM, Jun 19, 2013

Bonita Springs City Council member Steve McIntosh presents a proposal for annexing the Pelican Landing preserve and Coconut Point Marina to the Estero Council of Community Leaders June 14. The annexation move led the Estero Council of Community Leaders to consider becoming a city. The council will discuss the matter at a special meeting July 12. Laura Gates/ Banner Correspondent

John Goodrich, government relations director for the Estero Council of Community Leaders, responds to Bonita Springs’ intent to annex 842 homes, a 130-acre preserve and the Coconut Point Marina during the June 14 ECCL meeting. Laura Gates/ Banner Correspondent

The Bonita Springs City Council is expected to vote today on annexation agreements with WCI Communities and the Pelican Landing Community Association to voluntarily bring a 130-acre preserve and the 12.6-acre Coconut Point Marina under the city's jurisdiction.

The Bonita Springs City Council is slated to meet at 9 a.m. today, June 19, at City Hall, 9101 Bonita Beach Road.

The council also is expected to move forward with a voter referendum to annex another 477 acres, including 842 homes in Pelican Landing and The Colony, which are currently in unincorporated Lee County and part of the Estero planning district.

Estero leaders say these activities are a violation of a long-standing agreement between the two south Lee County neighbors, stating Bonita Springs would not initiate annexation into unincorporated Estero.

"This is the least neighborly thing I've ever heard and an outrageous provocation," said Howard Levitan, secretary for the Estero Council of Community Leaders (ECCL).

The looming annexations are giving steam to Vote Estero, a group pushing for the community's incorporation. Until now, the ECCL had withheld its support of Vote Estero.

"I've been opposed to incorporation since I've been here," ECCL Chairman Emeritus Don Eslick told McIntosh. "You're going to force me to become an advocate."

The ECCL responded to the proposed annexations with a resolution calling for Bonita Springs to "cease and desist from any further efforts toward annexation of properties within the unincorporated Estero community." The resolution states the ECCL will strongly oppose any annexation referendum until the legislature has approved filing of Estero's incorporation, to include the two-mile "buffer zone" north of the Bonita Springs city limits.

This recent hostility among neighbors is reminiscent of the pre-2005 political atmosphere when Bonita Springs unsuccessfully sought to annex everything west of Interstate 75 and south of Williams Road. After the failed attempt, Bonita councilors agreed not to initiate annexation unless adjacent landowners sought it out.

McIntosh said the city has not violated the agreement because representatives from WCI and members of the Pelican Landing community initiated the annexation proposal.

"As a resident of Pelican Landing, I would like everybody to be under one municipal government," McIntosh said after delivering his unpopular update to the ECCL. McIntosh said his street has 60 homes, with 54 in the city and six under the jurisdiction of the county.

If approved at today's City Council meeting, Bonita Springs would move forward with immediate annexation of the preserve and marina, with the next public hearing slated for Aug. 7 and a final vote on Aug. 21.

The voter referendum to bring 842 Estero residences -- roughly 20 percent of the Pelican Landing community -- into Bonita Springs would be mailed out Feb. 25, 2014. Annexation would take place on March 10, if approved by the majority of property owners, according to city documents.

The proposed annexations would bring the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort contiguous to the Bonita Springs city limits. However, McIntosh said the city isn't interested in a land grab to increase its tax base.

"This is about trying to create a community that is logical and makes sense," he said.